I looked right into his
heart and read it. He winced and turned his face from me. I was the
righteous judge now and he the culprit.
"You left her, Tim," I said hotly. "You might have known the girl
could never marry me after that minute. You might have known she was
not the girl to deceive me--she would have told me; and then, Tim, do
you think that I would have kept her to her promise? Why didn't you
come to me and tell me?"
"For your sake, Mark, I didn't," Tim answered, looking up.
"And for my sake you left the girl there--you turned your back on her
and went away. Then in her perplexity she looked to me again, and I
had gone. I didn't know. I went away for her sake, and when she sent
for me I had forsaken her, too. That's a shabby way to treat a woman.
Do you wonder she turned to Weston?"
"No," Tim said, "for Weston is a man of men, he is--and he cared for
her--that's why he stayed in the valley."
"I knew that," said I, "for I saw it that day when he went away from me
to the charcoal clearing.
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